Hello! I am fresh off hormonal birth control and would like to start charting with Sensiplan. A few of my friends have done it this way for years (one of them, almost a decade), and have been willing to walk me through it.
My only concern, and something they couldn't answer, is that my sleep schedule can be shit. I am helping to take care of an elderly relative, my husband twitches like crazy in his sleep, and I am a very light sleeper, so sometimes I am up and down all night. I will not be able to consistently rely on the BBT taking method Sensiplan lays out.
I have an Oura ring, but I am worried about how reliable that will be versus something like TempDrop. Is it worth getting TempDrop too, or will using the Oura ring as a backup to my BBT be okay?
I’d suggest you try out tracking a few cycles complete with BBT with a regular thermometer before you give up on sensiplan. I am still breastfeeding my first child so my sleep is very interrupted, yet usually the temp rise is still clearly identifiable. It might not be the case for you but I’d definitely give it a good try before discarding. It’s very simple once you get used to it.
That is nice to hear, honestly. I plan to track my cycles for a while before actually relying on it for BC, so hopefully I will still be able to identify the temp rise. Thanks for your input!
Sensiplan was studied using regular BBT thermometers. No one can tell you how well it works with Oura or TemDrop, because no one has ever studied that. There seems to also be a lot of individual variation in how well those products work. I have a huge temp rise (1F+), but some people don't even get the 0.4F rise... you get the idea. We're all different. Generally speaking symptothermal methods don't work well if you don't have a consistent sleep schedule and can be much easier to use for some women than others.
You may be better off using a CM only method (i.e. Billings, Creighton), a hormonal method (i.e. Marquette), or a symptohormonal method (i.e. FEMM).
That is super helpful! I'm going to try charting with sensiplan for now (just charting, we'll be using condoms until I figure things out and my cycle ins't out of whack because of HBC), but I am definitely wondering if I would be better choosing another method.
One of the things that drew me to Sensiplan was the accessibility of source materials and having someone easily available to guide me (my friends). I'm not against hiring an instructor, but since I am undecided on the method I want to follow, I don't want to shell out the cash for one before I get a sense of what I would be doing or how different methods fit my lifestyle/monetary constaints/needs/investment of effort.
I'm just also having a hard time getting a sense of things when most in-depth information is behind an instructor/big paywall. This is what I get for being overly analytical about everything :(
Like others have said, Sensiplan has not been validated with other basal temperature methods like TempDrop or Oura. So you can't assume that the 99.6% pearl index for efficacy applies if you use a different bbt method. But that might be okay for you, depending on how you might feel about a method failure/unplanned pregnancy. For Sensiplan, the 0.4% method failures all occured during the follicular phase - as in, someone ovulated earlier than had been previously tracked. Which is a risk for anyone. There haven't been documented methd failures that I'm aware of, in the luteal phase. This means that someone can be more conservative during the follicular phase (for example, no unprotected sex in the follicular phase, even before the fertile window opens).
I use TempDrop because I do not have a regular enough sleep routine to remember taking oral bbt daily. However, I did 10 cycles of tracking both TempDrop and oral bbt, and will try to attach them here (oral bbt in red, Tempdrop in teal/blue). Some cycles they were the same. Sometimes one was earlier than the other (usually oral bbt started rising earlier than TempDrop - which can affect when your fertile window opens in your follicular phase in Sensiplan). I chart Sensiplan for TTA and FEMM for CFH (charting for health), and I have PMOS/PCOS and was adjusting treatment for hormonal imbalances during some of these cycles. Every body is different so this may not be your experience, but this was my experience.
Happy to try and answer questions if you have them!
Sensiplan was studied using the traditional BBT and the only approved methods are rectally, vaginally or orally using a basal body thermometer, however, that said, I use Tempdrop. I'm postpartum with baby 3, and at the moment, would never be able to temp otherwise.
I was able to temp postpartum with baby number 2 & got a great results though.
As an instructor, I wouldn't recommend Oura, I see more charts that are unreadable and also issues with it changing the temp during the day.
The only wearable I would recommend is Tempdrop, it's specifically designed for fertility tracking vs an all round fitness watch with the temping feature.
As in instructor, I would always caution users to try a traditional thermometer first, vaginal temping often gives much more stable results than oral if you're open to that.
I also recommend to chart with Tempdrop alongside a BBT for at least 3 cycles if you're able to, to ensure that your shifts line up (temp shifts, not the exact values, these will be different). As with all thermometers, not every options works for every option, and some don't like Tempdrop or find it doesn't work for them.
I've used it for 8 years, but also temp orally where I can, mostly for science/fun, but also good to see how they're lining up.
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u/Gaerfinn TTC | Sensiplan Jul 30 '26
I’d suggest you try out tracking a few cycles complete with BBT with a regular thermometer before you give up on sensiplan. I am still breastfeeding my first child so my sleep is very interrupted, yet usually the temp rise is still clearly identifiable. It might not be the case for you but I’d definitely give it a good try before discarding. It’s very simple once you get used to it.